LUFYTOE vs LUFYTIH

All right, well good morning and I greet you all in the name of Jesus. It's good to be here, good to have each one that is here. I'd like to start this morning with three stories.

These are hypothetical stories, but they've all got an element of truth to them. And just let your imagination go with me. First of all, 1917, middle of World War I, there's a young man who comes to Christ, gives his heart to the Lord.

He becomes a Christian. As he's studying his Bible, he reads about what Jesus said about certain topics that we call non-resistance. Jesus said, resist not evil.

Jesus said, love your enemies. Jesus said, put up your swords. And he's reading these commands, this young man is.

And as he's just given his heart to the Lord, he's made a commitment to follow Jesus. And he says, I believe this is true. However, he is of draft age, and World War I is raging, and he gets a draft notice in the mail.

Now there's one side of him that says, I want to respond to this draft notice. I want to support my country. I want to go join the war effort.

But as he looks at the words of Jesus, it's so clear. Jesus said, don't resist evil. Jesus said, love your enemies.

And he's wrestling back and forth. What do I do? About, I don't know, 10, 20 years earlier than this, back in the late 1800s, there was a baseball player, a very good baseball player. I believe he set some records.

His name was Billy Sunday. Billy Sunday became a Christian. He became an evangelist.

He was going all over the country preaching. And by the time this young man that we're talking about became a Christian, Billy Sunday had been preaching to huge crowds over and over again, bringing people to the Lord, telling them how to, you know, telling them to get saved. So this young man who's now wrestling, do I join the military or not? He decides, I'm going to go to Billy Sunday and ask him for some advice.

And so he does. He goes to Billy Sunday and he says, Billy Sunday, I want to talk to you. You know, we're in a war right now.

Yes, that's right, says Billy Sunday. Those dirty Germans, they're creating all kinds of havoc around the country. Well, this young man says, I don't know what to do because I've given my heart to the Lord Jesus.

Maybe it was even at one of Billy Sunday's crusades that he gave his heart to the Lord. But he says, I was reading there in the Sermon on the Mount, and it says to love my enemies. It says to resist not evil.

It says Jesus said, put up your swords. Don't take up the sword. And so I'm thinking, if I really want to please Jesus, I should not go and join the military.

What do you think, Mr. Sunday? And Mr. Sunday looks back at him and tells him, in no uncertain terms, that's wrong. You should go join the war. He says, those Germans are trying to take over the whole world, and you need to, as a young man, as a dedicated member of our society, you need to go join the military and fight those Germans.

Now here's a question I have for you. If this young man chooses to obey the preacher instead of what looks like the clear words of Jesus, what's the result of that? So you have Jesus' words over here that have just seemed so true, so real, so clear, but now you have this great preacher telling him, don't follow Jesus literally. I don't know if he would actually say ignore the words of Jesus, but at least don't take him so literally.

You need to go and do your duty and join the military and fight the Germans. If the young man does what the preacher says, what's the result? Is he still a Christian? Here's another question. Are the words of Jesus good news, or are they bad news? Jesus said, resist not evil.

He said, love your enemies, and so forth. Are the words of Jesus good news, or are they bad news? He wants to join the war. He feels like he should.

Deep down in, he kind of wants to, and so there's that, plus Billy Sunday's words on one side, but over here on the other side are Jesus' words calling him to love his enemies. What should he do, and what are the results of whatever choice he makes? Think about that a little bit. Okay, another story.

2005. A couple becomes a Christian, man and wife, and they start reading the Sermon on the Mount. They discover what Jesus said about divorce, divorce and remarriage.

He who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. He who, he says, if you divorce your wife and marry another, you're committing adultery. And they become convicted, because both of them have previous partners that they were married to, and divorced from, and now they got married, and now the two of them came to the Lord and said, we want to yield ourselves to Jesus.

But they read the words of Jesus, and they say, the very clearest understanding of this is, we are in adultery. We're living in adultery. What should we do? And they study, they read, maybe some of the early Christian writings, they say that we don't think we can go on this way.

And they talk to different people, they get counsel, and now they want to stay together. They had a pretty good marriage, they really, really want to stay together. But the words of Jesus look so clear, and it just seems like there's, there's no way to get around it.

So you have Jesus' words over here, and over here is our desires to stay together. They decide to do one more thing. They call this, this ministry called Focus on the Family.

They talk to the president, James Dobson, and say, what should we do with this marriage that we're in? We think it's adultery, we think we should break up. What should, what do you think we should do? And James Dobson, the president of Focus on the Family, he tells them, no, no, you need to stay together. You see, his focus is on the family.

It's not on the words of Jesus, it's on the family, and they're a family, so therefore you should stay together. And he says, don't take Jesus so literally in this case. Now what if this couple does what James Dobson says? Are they still Christians? Here's another question.

Are the words of Jesus good news, or are they bad news in this situation? Think about that. Okay, third story. A young man has committed his life to Jesus.

This is now 15 years later, in 2020, and he begins reading the Sermon on the Mount. And he starts reading about things that Jesus says to do and not to do. And one of the things he reads is that, in this new word that I'll introduce to you here, he says, he sees Jesus said, don't do this thing right here.

It's called lupito. I don't know if you ever heard of that word or not. Lupito.

So he sees this in the Sermon on the Mount, it says, don't do that. Now that's actually not a word, it's an acronym. Lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.

Okay, so Jesus said, don't do that. And he reads that, and he thinks, wow, I really enjoy laying up treasures on earth for myself. And he doesn't know.

He doesn't know if he should do it or not. So he's got on one side, he's got these words of Jesus. It says, don't do lupito.

L-U-F-Y-T-O-E. L-U-F-Y-T-O-E. Lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.

And Jesus said, don't do that. And he just wrestles back and forth. And so, do I take this literally or not? So finally, he calls a ministry.

He calls up Dave Ramsey ministry. He says, Dave Ramsey, do you think I should practice lupito? And Dave Ramsey tells him under no uncertain terms, yes, you should. It's good stewardship to practice lupito.

And so he's got this wrestling match. He's got the clear words of Jesus on one side. And over here on the other side, he's got his own desires.

And a lot of things that Jesus say not to do, they're enjoyable. We were at the football game the other day, passing out tracks and there was 50,000 people there and they were really enjoying themselves. They were drinking.

The Bible says, don't get drunk with wine. Now, I've never tried it, but I kind of believe it probably is fun to get drunk with wine. And there was a lot of immorality going on there that Jesus said, do not do.

And I think every one of them would say, this is a lot of fun. And they were worshiping their God, the football game, the football team. And that probably was a lot of fun too.

I can imagine it would be. Well, lupito is quite a bit of fun. I can say that it's fun.

From my past experience, it's enjoyable, laying up treasures on earth, watching them grow, moving them from one investment to another. And it's a lot of fun. So here's this young man in this wrestling match.

He's seeing Jesus' words that say one thing, but over here you have my desires. And now I've even got a Christian leader, a well-known person named Dave Ramsey saying you should practice lupito. Now, what does he do? Now, here's another question.

If he chooses to follow what the financial advisor says, instead of what Jesus says, what's the result? Is he still a Christian? Second question, are the words of Jesus good news or are they bad news? So those are some questions I want you to think about. Let's go on to another question. And this is once we've answered that, well, what exactly qualify as lupito, laying up for treasures on earth? What actions even would that be? If I wanted to disobey it, how would I go about doing it? Or if I wanted to obey it, what would I need to avoid? When Jesus said, lay not up for yourselves, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.

What if I put some money away in an emergency fund, you know, just to kind of make things work? What if I keep extra money in my checking account just to pay, you know, the normal bills? What if I decide I need a house and so I save up money for the house? What if I decide I want to start my own business? And so I save up some money to buy a few tools or equipment to start the business. What if I want to go on a mission trip somewhere? I want to go overseas for a while and preach the gospel. And so I set some money aside to do that.

Is that violating Jesus' words when he said, do not lupito? Or is that not a violation? And you know, the Bible doesn't answer those questions I've just given. In fact, the Bible only mentions one thing that it says, this is lupito. This is laying up for yourselves treasure on earth.

And that's saving for retirement. That's the only one the Bible mentions that says this definitely is lupito. And that's in Luke chapter 12, if you want to look that up.

So, you know, we have this wrestling match going on and, but instead of seeing how close we can get to this, Jesus doesn't spend a lot of time defining it. Instead, he gives us another action and says, do this instead. And this one is also enjoyable and it's called lupito instead of lupito.

Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. And that's what Jesus said to do. And this one is, that's an I by the way, T-A-I-H, treasures in heaven, lupito, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

And so Jesus said, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven instead of laying up for yourselves treasures on earth. And you say again, well, what qualifies as doing this? I want to do this. Jesus said to do it.

I've given my life to him. What does it mean to lay up treasures in heaven? Is it reading my Bible? Is it maybe witnessing to people? Go pass out tracts to people? Is that laying up treasure in heaven? Maybe it's raising my family and teaching them the Bible so they can answer good, you know, the questions during children's lesson. They can get those questions right.

Is that laying up treasure in heaven? And the answer is maybe it is, but God doesn't ever mention those things as laying up treasure in heaven in the Bible. There's only one action that God mentions, as far as I could find, that's laying up treasure in heaven. And that is giving to the poor, helping the needy.

Giving is the thing that Jesus mentioned, which is Lafitte. So we have these two actions, do one, don't do the other. And so the question that I have this morning, how do we navigate life? If we don't have these detailed instructions from Jesus saying how I'm supposed to, you know, spend my money, use my resources.

He hasn't, it's not like Jesus can come down and say, Hey, give me your checkbook. I'll take over from here. Give me a pen.

I'll do it for, I'll do it. No, he hasn't said that he's left it in our laps in, in some, you know, in some major ways. And so what do we do? How do we navigate life with these very clear, you know, it's very clearly a do not and a do, but how do we get through it without Jesus telling us exactly what qualifies and what doesn't qualify? Well, step one is become very familiar with scripture.

That's one of my goals here today. This is another sermon in the series that I preached back at Bible school last fall. We had a series called opening the windows of heaven, and I have shared, there was five of them.

I shared three of them already here. And today we're going to go on with number four. The first one was, we talked about these windows that God has said that I'm going to give you grace.

If you do these certain things, there's these windows of heaven. God wants to pour grace into your life. First one was humble yourself.

Second one was pray and fast. I did those, I combined those into one message, pray and fast, humble yourself, pray fast. And the fourth one we're dealing with right now is give, giving.

This is something that it says in, in Amalekai that he says, if you give, if you give generously, if you give for the right motives, you've given the name of Jesus, I will open the windows of heaven. That's the term it uses there in Malachi. Later, Jesus gave more specific things.

So we're going to do a little bit of review before we go into this. And I would like to ask for some help. Stephen and John, could you pass out some of these pamphlets? I think, I guess, pass them out to Silver John.

But these passages right now, this is what we covered last time. So this is a little bit review from, I think it was three months ago, I gave the first talk on this. And what we started with was looking back and seeing what had already been given in the will of God.

Before Jesus ever came, he gave these principles of financial responsibility. And I picked out 10 of them. Most of them come from the book of Proverbs.

But these are things that a well-educated Jew would have been very familiar with already. And, you know, so Jesus' audience, his disciples, they would have looked at these things and said, yes, we recognize those things. So here's what they are.

Responsibility in stewardship, divine ownership, responsibility in working, diligence, responsibility in giving. And there's verses there for each one. Responsibility in controlling your spending.

Number five, responsibility in honesty and integrity. Yeah, you can just leave them there on the front. Thank you.

Number six, responsibility with debt. The borrower is servant to the lender. These Jews, they knew better than to borrow up to the hilt in debt.

Responsibility in planning. Number eight, responsibility in keeping records. Number nine, responsibility in receiving counsel.

And number 10, responsibility in investing. And you can read those passages, what those are. The last one is responsibility in investing, living for the future.

Not just living for the present, but living for the future. And Jesus talks primarily about that number 10. He gives added instruction for number 10, but number 10 is a little premature if you don't have the other nine in place already.

If you haven't learned how to work, if you haven't learned how to control your spending, if you haven't learned how to avoid debt, then, you know, keeping records, number eight. If you haven't learned those things, then when Jesus comes along with his instruction, it's not going to be nearly as meaningful. It's going to be, seem somewhat backwards.

But if you have learned those, then, you know, then you're ready for number 10 and you're ready for Jesus to give some added instruction in that. And so just as a way of illustration, let's talk about ourselves and where we're at in history. We live in the country, United States of America.

I think most of us here, probably United States citizens, but at least we're here now. And as a United States citizen, we have some rare, how shall I say it? Conditions around us. We live in the richest country in the world right now.

Not only that, we live in the richest country that has ever existed at any time, at any place in the world. We live in a country of unprecedented opportunity. When my son Dennis was over in Iraq, he would talk to these young guys that he was teaching English to.

And these young Iraqi boys, they had a dream. They wanted to come to America. If there was one thing they could, they would have loved to do, it's come to America sometime in their life.

But you know, those Iraqi boys will probably never come to America. And there's a couple of reasons why. One of the privileges you have as an American, and you didn't earn this privilege.

If you were born in America, if you were born in the United States, you can do something that those Iraqi boys can only dream of. And that is with just a few dollars, you can go down to the passport office and get yourself a US passport. You say, why is that so important? Well, these Iraqi boys, they could do the same thing in Iraq, go and get an Iraq passport.

And now they go to a travel agency and say, I want to travel to this country or that guy, I want to go to the United States. And they look at the passport and they say, sorry, that's an Iraqi passport, you can't come to the United States. Meanwhile, you guys here, all of us, we can go get a US passport.

And that passport will take us to almost any country in the world, almost any country in the world. There's a few exceptions, but just about any country in the world, if you have a US passport, they'll welcome you with open arms, just because you have a US passport. Now tell me, what did you do to earn that? You didn't earn a thing for that right to get a US passport.

Those Iraqi boys, just because they were born in the wrong country, have no access, doesn't matter how much money they have, they can't travel overseas with a Iraqi passport to many countries. Now, maybe they can, you know, with enough money, maybe they can buy a passport of I don't know what it would take, you know, the very rich, I'm sure they could probably get their foot in the door in ways that we can't. But that's one privilege that we have as Americans.

But there's another one. And that is simply our earning capacity. We just came through harvest.

Many of the unskilled laborers in this country, I say unskilled, it's not an insult, that's just saying they haven't been through school, they haven't got a college degree, and yet they can go and they can get a job driving a tractor, driving a combine, working long hours. And within about one month, probably 30 days or less, this unskilled, untrained, let's say, this person who hasn't been through any kind of a college degree at all can earn enough money to get a plane ticket anywhere in the world. In one month, that's it.

Now, that's something those Iraqi boys could only dream, they could never earn, it would take them all year to earn that much money, or maybe several years to earn that much money. And even if they had the money, they couldn't get a passport. So their dream of coming to America or somewhere else in the world, that dream's going to die when they die.

It'll never be fulfilled. So why has God given us, as Americans, this incredible wealth? Why do we have so much compared to others in the world that have so little? Well, I can think of two reasons that God has given us the resources He's given us. Number one, He wants to test us, just like He put that tree in the Garden of Eden and said, don't eat of it.

You say, God, just cut it down, get rid of that tree. That would be so easy. But He didn't.

He left it there. It was a test for Adam and Eve. Are you going to obey or are you going to not obey? God has given us this incredible wealth to test us.

Number two, God has given us this incredible wealth so that we can take part in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, spreading the gospel, shining a light into the darkness, showing the love of Jesus to a hurting world. We have incredible opportunities. This is what I'm talking about right here.

Luffy tea, laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven. It's an incredible opportunity that we have. And sometimes we, as Christians say, I wish I'd have revival in my heart.

I wish my heart would change. I wish I would be closer to God. I wish that I wouldn't feel so lukewarm.

Did you know Jesus tells you how to do it? He says, practice this and your heart will change. Practice this, lay up treasures in heaven and guess what will happen? Your heart will be where your treasure is. Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven because where your heart is or where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Back in 1986, something happened that I think it was March 13, 1986. There was a country, a company that went public. It was called Microsoft.

Now Microsoft was headed up by a man named Bill Gates. Years before this, back before Microsoft started as a company, Bill Gates had an idea for some software. He created a software called MS-DOS and he went to IBM, the biggest computer maker in the world at that point, and says, I would like to sell you this software.

Well, IBM, they had some of their own software. Bill Gates thought his software was better than theirs, but they looked at it. They said, how much do you want? He told them, ah, $50,000.

If you can give me 50,000, I'll just give you the right to this software right now. And they looked at it and they thought about it and they scratched their heads and their beards if they had them. And they said, no, we don't want your software.

So Bill Gates said, that's okay, I'll go start my own company. And he did. And he started Microsoft.

And it wasn't long until everybody wanted his software on their computers to the point that IBM was forced to buy it from him. They had to pay him a million dollars for that, not just once. They had to pay him that much every year to get this software on their computers.

And his company, Microsoft, started to grow and grow and it turned into a bigger and bigger company and eventually Bill Gates became the richest man in America. Now, in the investing world, that's a great opportunity. Because even though the rest of us who never have any idea how to create software like Bill Gates could, there was an opportunity in March 13 of 1986 to get on Bill Gates' coattails.

You see, he was selling shares of stock in his company at $25 each. And he was raising money to grow the company. And so, you know, if someone would have come along and had $1,000 in 1986 and says, yeah, I'm going to put $1,000 into Bill Gates' company, that would now be worth over $3 million.

So 1986 is not that long ago. Now, some of you younger ones, you say, well, I wasn't even around. When I was around, I was 14 years old back then.

I probably had $1,000. But I blew it. You see, I didn't put any money into Bill Gates' company.

I didn't know about it. Somehow I thought I'd had other plans for that $1,000. I don't know what I was thinking.

But for some reason, I passed up this amazing opportunity to buy stock in Bill Gates' company, which today $1,000 would be worth $3 million. Why did I miss it? Well, that's how investing works. There's a window of time, the windows open and then the window closes.

The windows open and the window close. And once the window closes, it's forever gone. This opportunity we have to lay up treasures in heaven, it's the window that's open.

Just like for a couple of days, maybe a couple of weeks, maybe even a few months back in 1986, that window was open to buy into Microsoft at that low price. And then it shut. We are right now in a period of time when we can lay up treasures in heaven, but it's a window that's going to close.

It's a wonderful opportunity, but the opportunity is going away. John Demartin tells the story of a man who was shipwrecked on a desert island and this tribe of people, they found him and they arrested him. He thought they were going to kill him.

But instead of doing that, they made him king. They said, we always do this. Every time somebody is shipwrecked here or every time a foreigner comes, we tell them they can be king for one year.

And they served him hand and foot. They brought him the best food. They put him on a throne.

They gave him a little crown and a scepter. And wow, this is neat. Why are you making me king? Well, this is what we do.

Well, he's just enjoying himself and a month goes by and he can't believe he's the most important person on the whole island until he starts to thinking. You said for one year. Yeah, one year.

What happens after the year is up? Oh, well, see, what we're going to do then is we're going to send you out there on that other island over there where nobody lives. You can see the, just the mountain peak way out across the water. Nobody's there.

We're going to put you out there and you're going to starve to death. That's what we've done to all the other kings previously. Well, he starts to think, what am I going to do? This is a, this is a, I mean, right now I'm living in luxury, but 11 months from now, I'm going to die for lack of food.

So he says, you know what? I'm king. I have an opportunity to do something about that island. So he tells people, start building ships, filling them with food and sending these, all these servants over there to that island to plant gardens and vineyards and put up greenhouses and, and build, build, build, you know, houses to live in and, you know, drill some wells and put up pumping systems and to the point where 11 months later when his time of being a king is over, he's now in good shape.

They send him out there to that island. It's no problem at all. He's got everything he needs to survive well for the rest of his life.

You know, that's how again, investing is. We can have, we have a period of time that we can right now, investing in the kingdom of heaven. We have a period of time right now when we can send our wealth, our resources ahead of us out of this country, out of this world to a place where they'll last forever.

But if we miss it, we've missed it forever. And so that's where, that's, that's what we want to encourage you to do what Jesus said, move your treasure from treasures on earth from luffy toe to luffy tee. And by doing so you'll change your heart.

Now, I would like to you boys that were so kind as to hand out things before to do it one more time, if you don't mind. So everybody who got one, we are going to take a look at some of Jesus commands. We've already looked at some of the commands from Proverbs and now we're going to move up into the New Testament and see what did Jesus say.

There was a preacher who was one time given advice to other preachers and he had three points that he wanted to emphasize to them. He says, preachers, whenever you're preaching, using solid scripture to back up what you're saying, you can thunder, thus saith the Lord. Whenever the Holy Spirit is whispering to you, you need to be whispering as well.

And preachers, whenever you're on thin ice, don't jump up and down. When you have solid scripture, you can thunder, thus saith the Lord. When the Holy Spirit is whispering, be sure you are whispering, but when you're on thin ice, don't jump up and down.

And so when I look at this, when I handed out these verses to you, and you can fold this one in half so it's a little easier to manage and turn over to the inside, and we're just going to look at some scriptures. I said at the beginning, you know, I can't give everybody a prescription exactly. Here's what you need to do in every situation that you get yourself into.

But what I can do is share with you, here's what Jesus said, and make ourselves very familiar with Jesus' words. Because then you're going to have the same tools that I've ever had. You're going to take those things that Jesus said into account when you're making decisions about how to run your own life and use your own possessions.

So it's one of the things you're going to see about this. Jesus commands, they kind of seem to assume that we have our own stuff, right? They kind of assume that we have our own money. They kind of assume that there is such a thing as private property.

And then He wants voluntary obedience. He does want obedience, but He wants that obedience to be voluntary. He wants it to be cheerful obedience.

He wants us to do what He said with these things. And so I'd like to change you, you know, don't focus on what Roger Hertzler thinks. That's not the focus at all.

Focus on what Jesus said. And, you know, I have no idea when Judgment Day comes sometimes how Jesus is going to judge all these things. I know some people will look and say, well, you know, Roger, you wrote that book and you said all these things and you've got some radical ideas.

Don't focus on that at all. Focus on what did Jesus say. It's going to be whatever.

I'm not going to be a judge on Judgment Day. I'm going to be judged. That's going to be my role.

I'm going to be one of those that's judged. So, you know, is it possible that whatever Roger thinks, Jesus is going to be far stricter than anything Roger would ever say. So take your focus off of me just because I'm the one up here behind the pulpit.

Look at what Jesus actually said and ask yourself a question. We asked it earlier. Is this good news or is it bad news? All these verses that come right out of the Bible, are they good news or are they bad news? Did Jesus give these things for our good or did He give them to actually curse us in some way? So think about those questions as we read down.

Think about one other thing. Think this question. Is this really a command? And I thought about reading it in this way.

We read a command and then pretend Jesus is here and He looks at us and says, here's my command. And then He points a finger and that's a command. And then we read another one and that's a command.

You can think that in your mind. Maybe I'll say it some. I don't know.

But are these really commands or are they just suggestions? So what do we think? Let's learn here. And again, the goal is to get ourselves familiar, get very internalized, get very much within us a knowledge and a familiarity with what Jesus actually said. All right, let's go.

So on the inside of this little pamphlet, what are Jesus' commands? First one we're going to look at is one we've already talked about. Matthew 6, 19, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth. Or as the NASB says, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.

Or Bible and basic English, make no store of wealth for yourselves on earth. And could we say, and that's a command. Verse 1, down below that, Luke 12, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, then who shall these things be? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself.

That's in the parable of the rich farmer who saved up for retirement. Matthew 6, take therefore no thought for the moral. Luke 12, beware of covetousness for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesses.

That's a powerful model. If you want a model for life and you struggle with these things, just that little model right there. A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesses.

Next one. Then they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, but thou, O man of God, flee these things. Keep yourselves free from the love of money and be content with what you have.

Covetousness, let it not once be named among you, but seek ye first the kingdom of God. Second set of commands, Luke 12, 33, sell that ye have and give alms. Or sell your possessions and give to charity, as NASB says.

Or Bible and basic English, give what property you have in exchange for money and give the money to the poor. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Give to every man that asketh thee.

And if anyone sue thee at the law and take away thy cloak, let him have thy cloak also. Lend hoping for nothing again. Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves.

As ye would that men should do to you, do ye to them. But rather give alms of the things that ye have, of such things as ye have. All right? Maybe we say, wow, those are quite some commands.

Well, what's the reason? Can we look at the reason why Jesus gave these commands? Yes, we can. Let's go down there. What are the principles behind Christ's commands? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

You cannot serve God and mammon, or wealth. That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. The love of money is the root of all evil.

He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. Blessed are you who are poor. Has not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom? And the rich he has sent empty away.

But woe to you who are rich. It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me. My God shall supply all your needs. Okay, next question.

How important is it to obey Christ's commands? You are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man. Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Hereby do we know that we know him if we keep his commandments.

He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If ye love me, keep my commandments. Not everyone that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. All right, what classes or what groups of people should obey Christ's commands? Charge them that are rich that they be ready to distribute.

Yet lackest thou one thing, sell all thou hast and distribute to the poor, he was very rich. Zacchaeus, he was rich, said the half of my goods I give to the poor. I don't know if you ever read that story of Zacchaeus and wonder, well poor Zacchaeus, that guy was, he really, he was really under a lot of conviction and he was really a miserable guy.

But no, Zacchaeus was the happiest man in the world. We don't know where to start sometimes with these commands. You know, what do we do? We have more than we need.

Well, Zacchaeus, he just decided to make it simple. I'm just going to cut my possessions right in half and I'm going to give half of them to the poor. Can you imagine the fun he had the next Monday whenever this was done? You know, he gets up in the morning and, you know, he starts writing checks and he knows there's people over there that need food and over there that need clothes and people that they need and he's just writing these things out and he's so excited about what he, the difference he's making to these poor people around the world.

Maybe give them to that organization, that charity, that church. I don't know if they had churches right then or not. But anyway, that was coming.

So Zacchaeus, maybe it was the rest of his life he was doing these things. He just loved, he was learning to love to give. You see, he had a heart change.

Just like Jesus said, lay up treasures in heaven, your heart changes. Zacchaeus' heart changed and he wasn't, it wasn't a burden for him at all. It was a privilege and he loved it.

Well, turn your page over. Here's somebody else who was loving it. The poor widow, she cast in more than they all.

You know, I suppose it was kind of miserable wondering, hey, what do I do with these last two mites? I'm not sure where the next meal is coming from. But once she decided, I'm going to give, then Jesus, by that, her example, he said something that has shaken the world ever since. This poor widow has cast in more than they all.

He that has two coats, let him impart to him that has none, that hath none. In their deep poverty, beyond their power, gave. Let him that stole, steal no more, but then let him labor, working that he may have to give to him that needeth.

And then next question, to what extent should we obey Christ's commands? If there's a first, a willing mind is accepted according to a man that a man hath and not that he hath not. That your abundance may be a supply for their want, that there may be equality. Sold their possessions in good and parted them to all men as every man had need.

Neither was there among the many that lack, for as many were possessions of lands or houses, sold them and distribution was made to every man as he had need. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus, though he was rich, for your sakes he became poor. And having food and raiment, let's be there with content.

As we have opportunity, let's do good unto all men. Every man as according as he has purposes in his heart, so let him give not grudgingly or of necessity for God loveth a cheerful giver. And lastly, what are the consequences? If we decide we're not going to obey Christ's commands, go to now your rich men, weep and howl for the miseries that will come upon you.

Your riches shall eat at your flesh as it were fire. You have heaped treasure together for the last days. Thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things and Lazarus' evil things, but now he's comforted and thou art tormented.

The deceitfulness of riches choked the word and becometh unfruitful. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

So then, because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth, because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods and of need of nothing. Depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting fire, for I was unhungered and you gave me no meat. And that servant which knew his Lord's will, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." So again, some commands from Jesus.

I'm here as a, just simply relaying what Jesus has given. He's given us, you know, if we have a Bible, most of us do. They're already there.

They're already in the Bible. You've probably read them over multiple times. And so we're just passing it on and passing it on as a blessing, passing it on as good news.

The gospel of Jesus is good news. And I want you to take it that way. There's, when we look at these things, we've already read some of them, but, you know, we say the reasons.

What are the reasons that Jesus gave these things? Well, one of them is laying up treasure on earth will make you rich. And Jesus said, you know, how hardly shall those who have riches enter the kingdom of God. Number two, your heart will be where your investments are.

Love not the world. If you love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. It's a poor investment to lay up treasures on earth.

It's a good investment to lay up treasures in heaven in the same way that Sodom or, you know, when Sodom, the fire fell and Lot was there in Sodom, you know, he could, he could have made investments, you know, one week before the fire came down, he could have put money in the stock market into retirement plans. What good would it have been if he knew the fire was coming? Of course he didn't know, but we know as Christians, we know there's another day coming. There's needy people today who are depending on our help that if we can, let's help them.

Some will starve. They'll go naked. They'll never hear the gospel unless we respond.

And finally, God will take care of us. He says, you know, if we lay up treasure in heaven, my God shall supply all your needs. And this whole thing, if we want this to happen in our heart, we want our heart to change from a person that's primarily thinking about this.

You know, a lot of people who, who, you know, they have this obligation mentality and say, okay, I got, I got the baseline obligation. I need to give 10% to God. And then after that, I'm going to lay up treasures for myself on earth.

Or there's another attitude though. I have to somehow take care of my family. I have to somehow do these things, but this is the privilege.

This is what I really want to do. And so I'll take care of them. I'll do what, you know, the Bible says, if you don't take care of your own, you're worse than an infidel.

So we have a responsibility for our families. But where, what do we, what do we get excited about? What's, what do we consider to be a privilege? You see, we all have a value system we're born with. You know, children, we see them as little children.

They're accumulating all these toys. We see them as they grow up, they start accumulating stuff. They get into politics.

They start accumulating kingdoms. That's, that's the world's mentality. That's a value system we're born with.

But the Jesus value system says, you know, these things are going to pass away, but treasure in heaven will last forever. So the Christian's goal is to give as much as possible to kingdom causes before you die. And, um, the, you know, I know some people will do maybe that in other ways.

Maybe they're going to go, maybe they're going to work at Cam West and they're going to spread rock, you know, and stuff like that. They're going to donate their time instead of their money. Maybe they're going to go overseas and work in Ukraine.

Maybe they're going to go, you know, and pass out Bibles in Nicaragua or Venezuela. You know, there's different ways you can do that. And that's, I think that is laying up treasure in heaven.

But I would encourage people that are doing this. I was talking to the children, the youth at Bible school and just encourage them, even if you're in a lower paying rank of society, still be a giver, learn to be a giver, learn to at least something because giving is a way to, uh, to, uh, to, well, open the windows of heaven, pour God's grace into your life. And we need the grace of God.

There's a, an example of, I've used already two people. Now just watch these two people as they look at all these verses that we just read and they want to put them into example. This first man, they, they, they both live in this, uh, they both live in these very interesting houses along an ocean.

And one of the wind, there's only two windows in these two houses. The window number one looks out across the ocean. The window number two looks down into the basement where all his stuff is stored.

So these two men go home. First man goes into his window, his, his, his house with two windows and his wife is in there. And he says, you know, I just got done reading a bunch of words from Jesus.

I never knew they were in the Bible before, but we got to do something about them. And he goes to his basement window and looks down there and looks at all his money. And he says, I think we've got too much stuff.

And so he pulls out a handful of money and says, go give it away. And she says, where do I give it? She says, I don't care. Just get rid of it.

We got too much. And then he looks down and he thinks, I think we still got too much. And he's sweating and he pulls some more out and gives it away.

He says, I don't want to, I don't want to face God on judgment day without doing something with these verses. And he's, he's worried. He doesn't know what to do.

And, and, uh, the other man though, he goes, he approaches a little differently. He gets home to his house and instead of going down to the basement window where all his possessions are, he looks out across the ocean and he sees all the opportunities. He says, look, there's people over here that need Bibles.

There's people that need food. And he says, give me some money. Let's send it to them.

And so she hands him the money and he sends it overseas. And then he says over here, some pastors that need support so they can spread the gospel. And he's so excited about these things.

And he says, keep giving me money. And he keeps sending it. And he's, he's, he's getting more and more passionate, more and more excited about what God can do with the little bit of money that he's giving.

And it's, it's, it's just, he's so happy about this privilege until suddenly his wife says, well, Hey, I think we're running low on money. Well then sell something because there's so still so much opportunity. Is that where our heart is to have weeks, have that change of values to where we are looking for these opportunities.

I just got this newsletter from Asia harvest and Paul Hadaway writes this. He says, always saddened me that many churchgoers around the world seem to leave lead directionless lives when there's so many opportunities to be involved in God's glorious expanding kingdom. Many Christians have not had their eyes open to the great themes that we, that great theme that weaves its way through the entire Bible that, you know, God is expanding his kingdom.

We have our eyes closed so often, but there's opportunity. And this change of values from value and treasures on earth to value and treasures in heaven is a huge, um, it's a huge tool that God has. He wants to do in our hearts to help us, um, um, to help us be a part of that journey.

So God is looking for faithful stewards. He wants you and me to be faithful stewards of his possessions. He's, he's not gonna, he's not gonna judge us by the world standards.

He's going to judge us by his standards. There's, um, I've shared this story. Probably some of you have heard it called Frank, the wise investor.

Frank was a, I'll try to abbreviate it cause we've got one minute here. Uh, but Frank was, was a guy who he, he got involved in this company of Microsoft. We talked about it earlier with, with Bill Gates.

And again, this is a hypothetical story. It's not a true story, but he, he became so excited about Bill Gates and Microsoft, and he was putting money into this at the low, those $25 a share, his wealth was growing. Eventually he went to work with Microsoft and Bill Gates looked at him and said, uh, you know what, you've been doing great.

And so he gives him a promotion, gives him a raise and he keeps, every time he has extra money, he puts it into Microsoft stock and it keeps growing and growing and growing. And one day Bill Gates says, Hey, Frank, I'd like you to go overseas. I'd like you to go to Russia and be my, my, my, uh, my representative over there.

I would like you to expand the reach of Microsoft over there. And, and I'm going to triple your wages. So you'd be able to put even more money into this Microsoft stock.

And so Frank does, and he gets, he gets excited and he's, is, is what he's living over there in Russia. He is friends with some of these other Russians and they tell him, wow, you got a lot of money, but you're just living in this small house. You're living it up.

But he says, well, that's not why I'm here. I'm here to accumulate money back across the ocean in America. And so he keeps sending all his extra money over to America to invest it in this Microsoft stock.

And you know, you, you can make some investments over here, Frank. I mean, Hey, we got this real estate. You could buy, you've got this stock market in Russia.

You could put your money into, and you could get rich Frank. You could, you know, keep it for the future. No, that's not why I'm here.

I'm here to accumulate money back in America in Microsoft stock. And so every penny he has, he sends it over there. He sends it and, and he just trusts it's going to be there when I need it.

Well, Bill Gates had warned him before he goes, he says, don't invest in Russia because it's an unstable political climate. It could at any moment pass into the hands of the communists. And sure enough, it does one day.

And the whole thing's melts down and he catches a flight out of the country with basically nothing left everything behind, which wasn't that much, but he gets on this airplane and flies across the ocean wondering what's happened to all the money I've sent across the ocean. Will I be able to use any, will my needs be supplied or will I be this penniless popper wandering the streets looking for food. But as he gets off the airplane in New York, he sees this huge procession of people there to welcome him.

And they said, you are one of the richest men in the, in America because of what you did for your 10 years over there in Russia. You have been put it into this company and it's grown like you never, you wouldn't believe. And you're one of the richest men in America.

You are, they called him Frank, the wise investor, newspaper reporters, everybody's there to watch and see what, what, what, you know, who this guy was and interview him and, and you know, maybe even try to copy him. You know, that's supposed to be a little example of what we're like, what we have the opportunity to do here on this earth. We have very real money, US dollars or Canadian dollars or wherever we are.

And it actually can be converted into something that will last forever. Treasures on earth, even though Jesus said, don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, it actually can be converted into something that you can keep forever. And Jesus told us exactly how to do it.

And that's the good news that we have today. So is the, are the words of Jesus good news or bad news? They are good news. They are a means of grace.

There are means of moving our hearts. There are means of building the kingdom. There are a means of laying up for ourselves treasures in a place that will never be taken away from us.

Let's, let's bow for prayer. Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. And we thank you Lord for this group of people that's here right now.

And we thank you for your word. We thank you for the Bible. We thank you for Jesus.

We thank you for the wonderful gospel, the good news that he came and gave us. And we thank you Lord for the, the part of the gospel that talks about how we're supposed to use our possessions. And so we pray that you would fill us with a passion, fill us with a desire to do the things that you have commanded us to do, trusting you that you will keep the things that we've committed unto you for the future, for our future, for your future, for your good, the kingdom that you are building.

Help us to know how to do that. Help us to know the details that we can't flush out for each other so much, but we pray that you would flush them out as we get more and more familiar with what you have said. Help us to let both the fear of God and the love for God drive us Lord.

So just, just be with us. Take these words by your Holy Spirit. Use them as you please.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.